The hell was square thinking with mining/botanist.

[TH4C]

I leveled all three gathering classes at the same time, so I had a lot of time to look at, and study, this. From what I saw, the xp gained for an NQ fish is "roughly" the same as a single node from the other classes - ASSUMING you actually hit all four times. The same is true for HQ - ASSUMING you actually hit HQ all four times. We also need to assume levels between fish and other gathered items are equal.

One problem is those assumptions. Any gatherer knows you almost never hit all four times without help from your skills. And getting all four HQ hits? Since base HQ chance seems to be capped at 15%, it's almost impossible. On the right node, with the right skills, I think the highest you can get it is 50% (for all four hits).

Another problem is the actual gathering success rate. Fish are "almost" guaranteed if you're using the right bait/lure - even if the fish is 5 levels above you. If the other two classes try to gather something 5 levels above them, they face a success rate of around 50% - give or take.

The reasoning for the disparity (although I don't agree with it) is the in-game, player-made economy. Squeenix found in the betas that gatherers were getting too many items (more gathering attempts, and no HQ cap if I remember right), so they took measures to "fix" it. They didn't want the markets to be flooded with gathered items. But fishing was NEVER meant to have an impact on the economy, so the constraints are relaxed. You can't really compare fishing xp to the other classes' for just that reason.

I said I don't agree with the reasoning because it's really nothing more than a band-aid. The in-game, player-made economy WILL fail. It's just a matter of time. The things they did to DoL will just delay it a bit. I could go into why I make that assertion, but I feel it's beyond the scope of this response. I really just wanted to pass on my observations as they related to your experience.